Hacker News Reader

Comment by srean | Hacker News Reader

I am now seeing quite a few videos of F15s trying to shoot down drones. That seems an odd choice.

Was this happening before or is it a new trend ? Is it to save on surface to air interceptors ?

Arguably this has been happening since the Cold War, as aircraft-launched missiles back then were designed to take out incoming cruise missiles. But in principle using something like an F-15 firing something like an AIM-120 is cheaper than using a Patriot, because the Patriot missile has to include a huge booster stage, a disposable radar, etc, while those can all be integrated into the plane instead in the case of an AMRAAM. In practice of course whether or not it is cheaper is dependent on the cost per flight hour of the plane and how many AMRAAMS you're making versus how many Patriot interceptors you're building. In that regard though, this _is_ new, because there's a fairly recently introduced missile called Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) that puts a relatively cheap seeker head onto a cheap otherwise-unguided rocket (I'm pretty sure the cost of an APKWS seeker + rocket is less than $50k), and those are cheap enough that you can send up an F-15 with hardpoints full of them and not worry nearly as much about letting loose several million-dollar missiles.

This is indeed to save on more expensive missiles. A very cheap missile, the APKWS, is augmented with a cheap laser guidance kit to make the APKWS II, a cheap short range air-to-air missile.

APKWS II isn't useful for counter-manoeuvring targets like fighter jets, but it is perfect for one way drones. The Hydra 70 rocket it is build from doesn't have the range by itself to protect a wide area, but an F-15E can carry a number of 7-rocket pods, and has the speed to chase down drones and cruise missiles over a wide area, like a hummingbird zipping between flowers. Depending on loadout restrictions due to fuel tanks, an F-15E could employ 42 APKWS II and a mix of short range (AIM-9X) and medium range (AMRAAM).

All of this requires airborne cueing, which is why the loss of the E3 Sentry is so serious.

https://www.twz.com/air/f-15e-spotted-packing-big-laser-guid...

Great, so now the US is going to lean ever harder on the Australian E-7 Wedgetail's all while Trump continues to drag allies and not own up to his colossal misstep.

Yes, the US is highly dependent on the single E-7 at present. It has a much better RADAR than the old Sentry as well, especially for picking out low flying missiles against sea clutter. Obviously it can't be in the air at all times, but I understand from OSINT that many of the Shaheds are launched at night.

The ground location of the Wedgetail is obviously something the Iranians would love to know, in which case they would saturate it will ballistic missiles and it would be a race to get it in the air. I expect it moves regularly but that would create significant logistical issues too. Unlike Patriot batteries, which can be heavily sandbagged and routinely shuffled between prepared positions, a 737 on the tarmac is incredibly vulnerable.

> That seems an odd choice.

Why? In Ukraine everything that can fly (light aircraft, helicopters, fighter jets, etc.) are shooting down drones.

I thought cheaper and slower moving counters would be used such as helicopters, a10s or propellor powered planes with guns (rather than with an expensive missile, I did not know if APKWS).

I guess, missiles shot from f15s are still cheaper than an interceptor missiles.

A-10 or propellor powered planes are more cost efficiteve but it looks like the US doesn't have enough of them and had to use much more expensive but numerous F-16 and F-35 e.t.c.

The US was not prepeared to counter drones and even after 4 years of the war in Ukraine still doesn't take economic aspect of drone warfare seriously continuing to behave like cost doesn't matter.

F15 seems to have the same cannon as f16, and there are multiple videos (like [0]) of successfully destroying Shahed drones and cruise missiles with it.

[0] - https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1970127431030985059

I didn't know this. Thanks.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com